Shaker Aamer

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jane Ellison]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. It is the ultimate stain on democracy. A man should know why he is being deprived of his liberty and what he must do to win it back. That is how I come at it; that is one of the fundamental principles on which mature democracies base their thinking.

Will the Minister comment on whether some of the waiver steps have been satisfied, and what further steps we could take in Britain to satisfy the US authorities? One of the US’s concerns is the possible recidivism of released detainees, or, in the case of the many who did not commit an act of terrorism in the first place, whether their treatment in Guantanamo has inspired them to violence. Releases depend largely on whether the receiving country is trustworthy and able to demonstrate that it can significantly mitigate any risks of recidivism, and I strongly suggest that the UK is eminently trustworthy in that regard. After all, the US trusts us in a range of sensitive areas, for example shared intelligence and co-operation on joint military operations. Additionally, the NDAA requires the publication of a detailed report on incidences of recidivism and the countries in which they take place.

The UK has an exemplary record on reintegrating released detainees. To my knowledge, among all the Guantanamo detainees released to Britain, the sum total of recidivistic activity is a single speeding ticket. Indeed, I understand that the UK has the best record of any country to which a significant number of prisoners have been returned. The UK itself lives with a significant ongoing threat from international terrorism, and the fact that the UK Government are pressing for Mr Aamer’s return to this country is surely the clearest possible demonstration that they do not regard him as a risk, especially given that he is not a British citizen.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady—on behalf, also, of my constituents—on raising the case today and on the detail with which she is going into the case. I want to highlight recent comments made by my constituents, which state that there is clearly no reason why Mr Aamer cannot be handed over to the UK authorities for them to carry out the investigation. The UK authorities are trusted by most people in this country, and my constituents feel that that would be the right step, and the very least that could be done to move the case forward.

[Jane Ellison]

The hon. Gentleman is right, and it is a question not only of trust but of track record, as I have laid out. It is not something that has to be taken on trust; it is something that the British authorities have demonstrated, time and again, they are capable of doing.

Perhaps there are other simpler steps that our Government could take to mitigate the risk in the eyes of the US authorities. As I have said, if Mr Aamer is apparently being held under “the law of war” to “prevent his return to the battlefield”, could the UK Government not seek assurances that he would not travel back to Afghanistan, or to any other prescribed country that the US considered a battlefield, to satisfy the concern? Could travel restrictions be placed on him? Indeed, I understand from his US lawyer that Mr Aamer has agreed voluntarily to accept any such travel restrictions, and even to report regularly to the police.

Here we have it: in simple terms, the President of the United States says that he wants to close Guantanamo Bay, and a trusted ally wants to bring that ambition one man closer to fruition. It must be possible for one of the world’s leading nations to explain to a trusted ally what is standing in the way of making that happen.

This might surprise some people, but I want to put on the record my thanks to the security services, which probably keep us safe every day in ways we will never know. However, if someone in the intelligence community is blocking Shaker Aamer’s release, and if mistakes have been made in the past, they will come out in the end because that is the nature of our free societies. But how much worse would it be if, when they did, they showed that a man was allowed slowly to die, to shield the institutions of our democracies from embarrassment and exposure? Our institutions are more robust than that.

We are here today discussing a political problem, but behind the politics and the diplomacy there is a family tragedy. On behalf of Mr Aamer’s wife, Zineera and his children, Johina, Michael, Saif and Faris, I call upon everyone of good will to work together to secure the return of Shaker Aamer to the UK.